Stuck between a rockery and a hard place!

Hi everyone, Looking for ideas for this rockery area! It is part of a garden of a new build home! I tried planting in it shortly after house was built but nothing took to it (I didn’t really know what I was planting but they all died after a few weeks). After been neglected for around 6 years I’v decided to try again to do something with it. Iv pull all the huge weeds out and turned the soil. It’s a thick clay type soil and with a drainage test it took nearly half a day to drain water from a small hole I dug, there is still some pretty thick roots in there that I couldn’t pull out. With this is mind, my plan was to bury some large plant pots in between the large stones and cover the rest with a heavy duty garden fabric, then cover the fabric with little stones and mulch (which will likely slide off)! At the moment I have covered it completely with heavy duty fabric to stop weeds growing until I decide what to do! Any ideas would be appreciated! Thanks